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strengths

Talking to my Mum about strengths is often a little challenging. She is far from negative, but her motto in life is “You just have to get on with it.”

I was making strengths videos some time back, when I asked her to pick out her top strength and talk to me about what this looked like in action. She struggled and found it hard to resonate with many of the 60 strengths from Realise2 that I showed her, despite Dad and I easily being able to identify many in her.

I recall over the years her saying that others had real talents that you could see and that she felt somewhat inadequate to those around her.

Eventually, she chose Service and was fairly comfortable with it, but muttering nonetheless that it was just something she just did, she just got on with it and it didn’t feel like a strength. She has spent her 67 years supporting others in various careers and community work and she thrives on it.

She has always ‘simply’ attended to others who have bigger needs; from birth as a trained nursery nurse up to the very elderly as a companion for the blind.

Service, along with her Moral Compass and Mission, are Being strengths and refer to the way we are, our values. So, when something comes this naturally to us, we often don’t recognise the true value or impact we have on others, and even on the world around us.

So, Mum might not have created or won something evident ,but she will leave the hearts and places she touches better off with her time, patience, humour and devotion to making others’ lives easier.

Thank you, Mum, for showing me your strengths over the years. You are immensely proud of me, but I wonder if you can see so much of you in me, and stop to appreciate that some of my successes are down to you ‘just’ being you?

What are your Mum’s strengths? When was the last time you pointed them out to her and the impact they have had on you? Don’t forget to draw on the more subtle ones and also to be specific about events and naming the particular strengths you see in her.

If you want to say thank you to your Mum, and you’re an accredited Realise2 Practitioner, we are giving away one free Realise2 Strengths assessment for your Mum for Mother’s Day. Email capp@capp.co before 12.00 midday GMT on Friday 13 March, quoting ‘Mum’ and stating when you were accredited as a Realise2 Practitioner, to receive your special Mother’s Day Realise2 Gift Certificate.

Recognising your strengths can help you become more engaged, happier and productive. So, whatever life stage your Mum is at, this will be a truly rewarding Mother’s Day gift.

Martin Seligman, the founding father of Positive Psychology, developed a world-famous simple exercise concentrating on identifying 3 things that went well in your day. Focusing on this simple philosophy can help build our life satisfaction and takes just a few minutes of diary writing each day.

I was reminded of the power of the exercise last week working with a client. When was the last time you stopped to ask this vital question: What Went Well?When did you last enable or challenge your colleague, manager, children, friends or family to think about what was good in their lives?

Your successes don’t need to be earth-shattering and ideally something from each of home and work is a great combination.Seligman then asks you to focus on the why, so that you can identify the reason for your success. For example, was it down to hard work, love, thoughtfulness, love of learning or the research or planning you undertook? Or something else?

With such brilliant benefits, why aren’t you doing the What Went Well daily? I am also at fault. Rushing in the door from work with many things to do, it’s easy to forget (why do I always get presented with a cooking ingredients list at 8pm the night before?!)In the midst of this, I can sometimes forget our evening meal ritual of ‘What was good about your day?’

When I first started this, everyone would moan and I never forget my father’s face when introducing it at Christmas dinner!!However, when I forget, the children now often remind me as they look forward to the positive reinforcement this gives them.

One way to help us think about why something went well is to have a better understanding of our strengths and to relate these to the situation. Identifying and using our strengths leads to better engagement and performance in your role. If you needed it, this gives you the business case for your 5 minute time out.

So, next time something goes well, big or small, ask yourself what strengths you were using that enabled you to succeed. Strengths can be about how you relate to people, how you think, your motivation, your communication and your passions, so try and identify at least one. By doing this, you will become more confident in using your strengths, enabling further success and creating a virtuous spiral of positivity.

To help you, there are just 5 days left to take advantage of our January Realise2 offer to buy 4 Realise2 codes, and receive the 5th code FREE!Simply go to www.realise2.com and enter GOALS2015 at the checkout to make the most of this offer.

It seems a truism to say that using your strengths will help you to achieve your goals, and yet still nowhere near enough people treat their strengths as their starting point for how they will achieve their goals.

The link between strengths and goals is something that has intrigued us for many years at Capp, since it is the fundamental philosophy underpinning everything that we do in our work, from strengths-based recruitment, through strengths-based development, to delivering strengths-based performance.

A wealth of evidence shows the links between strengths and happiness, but until we started our work, there wasn’t really much that said WHY there was this link between strengths and happiness. In 2010, colleagues and I published a paper in the International Coaching Psychology Review showing that people who used their strengths more were more likely to achieve their goals, and in doing so, they were likely to be happier.

In this paper in the International Coaching Psychology Review, we proposed that this was reflective of the self-concordance model of healthy goal attainment. This is basically a posh way of saying that when your goals are things that fit with you and matter to you, and your strengths are, by definition, an authentic part of you that you enjoy using, then using your strengths to achieve your goals will help you to be happier and experience higher well-being.

This is fundamental to the whole strengths philosophy, and explains why we see better results in recruitment, development and performance when working from people’s strengths. In short, because it FITS. We are working with the grain, rather than against the grain.

That’s why we’re running the Realise2 promotion throughout the month of January, helping all of our clients, and their clients in turn, to link their strengths to their New Year’s Resolutions, thereby increasing their chances of achieving those resolutions and being happier. Throughout January, if you buy 4 Realise2 codes, you will receive a 5th code FREE!

Simply go to www.realise2.com and enter GOALS2015 at the checkout to make the most of this offer.

Advancing knowledge about strengths and goals is also why we’re supporting Josh Gladwin, a third year undergraduate psychology student at the University of Warwick, with his third year project. Josh is looking in more detail at the relationships between strengths and goal attainment, and he would love your help.

If you can spare 5 minutes, please help advance our knowledge and support his research by completing Josh’s questionnaire here -

Social mobility and equality of opportunity is at the heart of our work in strengths-based recruitment and through the Jobmi platform. This is evidenced by the successes we have achieved in delivering improved recruitment outcomes for gender balance, ethnic balance, and balance of social background across a wide range of our clients across a wide range of industries and sectors.

With Jobmi, we set out to level the playing field of social mobility by enabling candidates to be assessed on the data about their fit to the role, rather than otherwise largely arbitrary screening criteria about the number of UCAS points a person has, or the degree classification they might have achieved.

In supporting the Social Mobility Business Compact, we are publicly stating our commitment to improve social mobility and equality of opportunity, of course through our own recruitment practices, where this is a given, but also through the work we do with many of our clients to achieve these same aims.

Longstanding Capp client EY is a Social Mobility Business Compact Champion, and having delivered strengths-based graduate recruitment for EY for the last 7 years, we are delighted to be extending our work with them to improve outcomes in social mobility through their recruitment processes as well.

The biggest challenge faced by every Head of Recruitment in changing their recruitment practices to improve social mobility and equality of opportunity is doing so in a pragmatic and practical way that continues to ensure quality of hire, is efficient and affordable, and is defensible across all stakeholder groups.

With Jobmi we have achieved this.

We look forward to transforming the social mobility landscape through improving equality of access and opportunity for people from all backgrounds and walks of life. We are doing this through harnessing the power of assessment insights, predictive data analytics and Internet platform network effects, all of which we combine within Jobmi.

Practical and pragmatic approaches to transforming social mobility through recruitment are now here.

We know from our research that optimising strengths will help you reach your goals as an individual. In this blog, let’s look at how this works with teams, to ensure you are committed to achieving team as well as individual success in 2015.

1. Define the standards. Research that looked at high performance across 19,000 people found that knowing your performance standards was the No 1 predictor of high performance. So, do your team know exactly how they are evaluated?

2. Define the goal. We love data, so we also know that the top strength that people want to see in their managers is Mission. Having a clear sense of purpose in what people do is critical. Do you and your team have a clear sense of what exactly it is you are achieving, why you are doing it and a well-communicated strategic plan for its execution?

3. Define the individual tasks needed. Break the goal down into bite-size achievable tasks in your project plan, with timelines for delivery. How long will it take and when will it be delivered by? What are the milestones? Who is on the project team and why? What are their responsibilities?

4. Define the strengths and people needed. Who, with their Detail and Planful strengths, is in charge of the execution? Who on the team, with their Innovation and Creativity strengths, loves to come up with new ways to achieve the creative elements? Who has the Drive and Persuasion to work with the data and the clients?

It may be tempting, particularly if you are a small team, to go with the tried and tested of who does what, based on what you always have done. But if you want to see an improvement in performance (the Corporate Executive Board suggests up to 36%), it is worth the investment of structuring responsibilities around people’s strengths.

Don’t assume that just because it worked before it was a success: the team could have been using their learned behaviours rather than their strengths. If this was the case, you might not have seen the painful expressions on their faces as they struggled to get the job done!

5. Define the weaknesses. Are there any gaps in the team? Can you learn from previous challenges of where the team needed extra support? Highlighting these gaps and seeing if anyone can use their unrealised strengths to fill the gaps and support the goal is a great way forward.

Understand the strengths of your team with Realise2 during January and get one Realise2 Profile absolutely FREE for every 4 Profiles that you purchase. Simply enter ‘goals2015’ at the checkout.

We are delighted to announce another element of our ongoing partnership with the Telegraph.

Through our Jobmi employability and recruitment platform (www.jobmi.com), Capp are providing the Strengths Questionnaire that is delivered as part of the Telegraph Apprenticeships App, supporting young people to discover their strengths and explore apprenticeships throughout England.

It’s New Year’s resolution time again! You know, the resolutions we make this week and then typically make excuses for next week!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Succeed with your New Year’s resolutions by making them part of you and something you really want to achieve – align them to your strengths so they just come naturally.

We know from our research at Capp that people who harness their strengths to achieve their goals are more likely to be successful in achieving those goals. Including your New Year’s resolutions!

Some strengths are better suited to goal attainment generally – strengths like Mission, Drive, Catalyst and Work Ethic – but, of course, any of your strengths could be entirely relevant to what you want to achieve.

What do you want to achieve and how will your strengths support you? Be as specific as possible to maximise your chances of success.If your goal is about building relationships at work or home, there may be several ways to go about this. But which way will allow you to play to your strengths?

For example, you may dial up your Connector or Rapport Builder strength if it is about strength in numbers, or alternatively your Relationship Deepener, Listener or Service to go one step closer and stand the test of time.

Perhaps you have a strength which might hinder your goal, and you need to think about dialing this down. One of mine is Counterpoint – I simply love having an opinion. However, there is always a time and place and Counterpoint doesn’t suit every situation, as sometimes we need to move forward with the plan and execute!

Are there any weaknesses you will need to minimise to achieve your goals? Don’t get tripped up here, acknowledge the weakness so that you can compensate for it and ask for help.

To help you and your team achieve your 2015 goals, Capp are offering ‘Buy 4, get 1 free’ for all Realise2 Profiles (Premium or Standard, max 125 total per person) purchased throughout the whole of January. Simply enter the code ‘GOALS2015′ during the checkout process.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Bright Futures Employability event in Birmingham, which featured employers, students and school pupils all sharing ideas on the theme of youth employability. There were some fantastic speakers, including Francesca Campalani from Lloyds Banking Group who gave a passionate talk sharing her vision for employability and how this has changed over the years. Another of the keynote speakers was Capp’s CEO, Alex Linley, whose talk explored strengths and the vital importance of knowing and deploying your strengths to full effect. In the world of modern recruitment it has never been so important to have solid self-awareness , so that when young people are applying for roles they can share their strengths in a confident and passionate manner.

One of the other main themes I took from the event was about technology and innovation, as we see the rise of fresh approaches in the recruitment space, including the move to video interviewing by a number of large organisations. To really maximise the use of new technology when moving through the recruitment process, we heard a lot about the importance of self-awareness in young people. Knowing their strengths and skills means that young people are able to be more effective and confident when showcasing themselves. This will undoubtedly lead to them having a higher degree of employability and enable them to get the best role possible.

Bright Futures has committees across the UK and in over 60 universities their members are currently using the Jobmi platform (www.jobmi.com) to identify and understand their strengths, as a result of the partnership between Bright Futures and Capp. Jobmi is Capp’s free to use employability platform that acts as a career companion by offering free assessments which identify strengths and give feedback on how best to deploy those strengths both when searching for positions and in role. By really harnessing their strengths and skills, young people can really improve their employability factor and find the right role in the right organisation. This is what it is really all about in the end; getting the job that fits you and finding an organisation that reflects your own values. The Bright Futures event gave people lots of help and guidance on how they can and should do this.

With the Commonwealth Games in full swing, I thought it would be great to share with you ways in which we can all be part of a winning team by using our strengths. Referring to the strengths and Strengths Families from Capp’s online strengths identification tool, Realise2, what do you bring to situations that make a winning combination?

Competitive: Let us start with the most obvious. You love winning and this will usually be the only acceptable option for you as it probably hurts to lose! You are used to leading and being part of a winning team. Competitive was one of the top weaknesses in the UK in our Realise2 study so consider how can you support others and role model your talent to encourage others’ competitiveness.

Motivation: What are your motivation strengths and how will these deliver your competitive goals? If you have Work Ethic or Persistence, you can put the time, energy and effort into keeping going to make sure you achieve success. If you have Drive you will push yourself to win as you love achieving the demanding goals you have set yourself. Those with a sense of Adventure will compete successfully by pushing the boundaries and achieving the impossible.

Thinking: If you are naturally gifted in your brainpower, what thinking strengths can help you win? You may want to come up with the newest or most creative idea in your organisation. Perhaps your Judgement helps you make winning decisions or your organisational strengths of Planful or Order make sure you get to the top of your game with the right resources and in a timely manner.

Relationships: If people are your focus you might not have thought too much about winning but your skill at getting the best from people will help deliver winning targets and goals through others. If you are emotionally connected with others use this talent to pick up on clues of others strengths and weaknesses to channel their energy in the right direction. If you are the natural Connector, use your network to put the winning team or resources together.

Being: Some of the Being strengths are all about ‘Making a Difference’ for example, Mission, Legacy, Service and Moral Compass. By aligning your passions and values together with your goals, it won’t be long before your commitment to the task sees you outperforming others and driving teams forward positively.

Communication: The key to getting others on board to deliver performance. With Narrator as a strength, your talent for storytelling and anecdotes is a powerful and convincing message to others as to why they should outperform. Perhaps you offer the Counterpoint, always looking for alternatives so you can achieve success another way if you come across challenges. The ability to use your Explainer and Scribe to avoid jargon and make sure the whole team understands their individual and team goals will be a powerful combination.

So, the next time you are working towards a winning goal, compete in a way that plays to your strengths and you are far more likely to maintain your engagement and get to the result you want.

Realise2 is the leading online strengths identification and development tool, used by 80,000+ to unlock the potential of individuals and teams.

To find out more about how using strengths can help your organisation find and retain the right talent, call Capp on +44(0)2476 323 363.

It was a great pleasure to attend and to be involved in this year’s annual conference, which was expertly hosted and organised by the AGR team.

Day one saw us enjoy welcoming delegates to two completely packed Masterclass Sessions entitled ‘Turning Early Years Attraction and Recruitment on its Head’, which allowed us to showcase some of the remarkable achievements strengths assessment has allowed for two of our clients, Nestlé and Morrisons.

Both the sessions allowed for audience participation over and above just typical Q&A and a 60 second interaction with the person you were sat next to was all it took to begin to understand what strengths-based interviewing is all about – with the further recognition of how easily this can be achieved on video!

An informative and educational handout not only contained a free access code to take the Realise2 Strengths Identification Test (www.realise2.com) but also a simple guide that explains how individual strengths are accounted and recognised.

In addition to sharing these useful tools, we took the opportunity to showcase Jobmi, the premier platform for job-seeker discovery and guidance – supporting people in understanding what type of career is best suited to their strengths (www.jobmi.com).

Excitingly for us, the questions from the floor in both classes and those asked by people who came up to us afterwards, really did highlight the fact that more and more people are ‘getting it’. Strengths-based assessment has got some serious momentum and the appetite amongst those in attendance was plain to see.

In summary it was a great couple of days and a great opportunity for us show how strengths-based assessment has demonstrated time and time again to deliver cost savings across the recruitment process, a higher quality of candidate at each stage of the process and a better fit and more productive employee into the workplace.

As The Strengths Specialists, we’d be delighted to talk to you more about how strengths assessment and development can make a huge impact in your business.

If you would like further information on the results shared by Tom and Hannah, please get in touch to request a copy of their case studies and also a copy of the Masterclass slide deck.